Troubles reconciliation commission set to open for victim requests in May
Legacy body chief confirms plans in place to take applications for probes
THE Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) is to start taking applications from Troubles victims and family members in May.
This is despite Secretary of State Chris Heaton-harris indicating that he will appeal a court ruling that stated the amnesty aspect of the ICRIR was incompatible with human rights legislation.
The ICRIR provides information to victims, survivors and their families about Troubles-related deaths and serious injury.
Its chief commissioner is former Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan, with Peter Sheridan, a former member of the RUC and head of Cooperation Ireland, as commissioner for investigations.
The group has published an operational design, laying out plans for the ICRIR and the results of public consultations with interested parties.
Sir Declan said: “We recognise the contested circumstances in which the commission came into being and the hurt that many have felt as a result of the changes to approach to legacy cases.
“The litigation in the High Court has meant that the legislative framework has been tested, and we consider this is important because it provides answers about whether or not the commission can meet its principle of compliance with the ECHR.
“The court’s ruling that the commission has the capability, through its independence, its powers, and its commitment to victim involvement, to carry out Echr-compliant investigations, means that we are now proceeding to put in place the next steps so that we can begin taking requests for investigations.
“From May, we will be able to meet every individual who wants to discuss their case and whether the commission can carry out an investigation.”
In February, the High Court ruled the conditional immunity from prosecutions for Troubles-era crimes, contained in the Government’s Legacy Act, was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case was taken by a number of victims whose loved ones’ cases are currently subject to inquest, Police Ombudsman investigation, or civil litigation.
Mr Justice Colton said he was “satisfied that the immunity from prosecution provisions under section 19 of the act are in breach of the lead applicant’s rights pursuant to article 2 of the ECHR”.
“I am also satisfied they are in breach of article 3 of the ECHR,” he said. However, the judge added that the ICRIR could carry out human rights-compliant investigations.
The development comes during a difficult period for Troubles victims, with the release of the interim Kenova report, and difficulties around disclosure in legacy inquests, such as that of Sean Brown, who was murdered by the LVF in 1997.
The coroner Mr Justice Patrick Kinney called for a public inquiry into the murder due to the amount of redacted material in the case.
There are also disclosure issues in the inquest into the 1992 killing of Kevin Mckearney and his uncle Jack Mckearney.
They were shot while working in the family butcher’s shop in Dungannon.
There are also issues in the related September 1992 murder of Charlie and Teresa Fox, who were shot by loyalists in their home in Moy.
Yesterday, the PSNI and Government also lost a High Court battle to stop sensitive information from being disclosed in the inquest of Liam Paul Thompson, who was shot dead in a taxi by the UFF in west Belfast in 1994.
Victims’ campaigners have called for the legacy legislation to be scrapped as a result of the recent court ruling.
However, Sir Declan said: “The court also found some aspects of the UK Government’s Legacy Act to be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and removed those provisions from the Act.
This means that they are not legal requirements on the commission.
“We will therefore not be subject to any obligation to determine requests for conditional immunity.
“The commissioners do not consider that the loss of this additional means of securing information recovery affects our wide range of powers to obtain information through our investigations.”
The ICRIR will carry out three types of investigations, a ‘focused investigation’ that will aim to address the questions that requesting individuals have raised.
This will use evidence and information recovered in previous probes, but may undertake targeted new investigative work, such as interviewing witnesses.
They will also conduct ‘liability investigations’ that will seek to establish all the circumstances of the death or other harmful conduct.
Such an investigation would be capable of leading to a referral for prosecution as evidence would need to be obtained to a standard that would support prosecution.
And finally a ‘culpability investigation’. This will seek to establish all the circumstances of the death or other harmful conduct.
The commission’s report said this may need significant new investigative work that would allow determining the acts of individuals and organisations to be made on the “balance of probabilities”.